


Welcome Back

by fordisgay



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: First Impressions, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-18
Updated: 2017-09-18
Packaged: 2018-12-31 05:10:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12125223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fordisgay/pseuds/fordisgay
Summary: Ford's first impressions of home after being absent for three decades.





	Welcome Back

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to do some word prompts for a writing warmup since I haven't actually written in months. Then it actually turned out good, so I decided to throw it up here on AO3.

~~Zeus~~ Soos is somewhat of an enigma, Ford thinks to himself as he glances up over the top edge of his journal toward the man in question. Skin like sandalwood, scant hair in place of a real beard, bigger front teeth, and brown hair underneath his baseball cap. He’s about as tall as Ford himself, though has more of a pear shape about him.

Honestly, he could have sworn the man was a hairless gopher. How was he to know the difference? He’d stumbled fresh out of a dimension containing a walking set of teeth. No wonder his sense of reality is, well, “off”, to understate it.

Ford looks up again at Soos as he climbs down from his spot screwing in a new lightbulb. Another few strokes of his pen… and… there! Question mark added to Soos’s t-shirt as dark as the pines in the woods, and his sketch detail is done. Just in time, as Stan’s voice yells from behind Ford, in the “gift shop”—and he suppresses another shudder at that foolishness—calling the handyman, “Soos! The golf cart’s busted again!”

“‘Scuse me, dawg,” Soos says as he shuffles past Ford through the door, adjusting the brim of his cap just before he disappears into the throng of people. Ford leans from foot to foot for a moment, debating whether to follow him and risk physical contact with the total strangers tromping through his house, or to stay in the relative quiet of the den.

His decision is made when he whips his head around at the sound of oinks and snuffles echoing from the kitchen, getting closer along with taps of its cloven hooves on the hardwood. Stan may be fine having swine in the house, but Ford is most certainly _not_. The pig comes closer, and he feels himself shifting weight backward, face twisting in disgust as it looks up at him. No, no, no, no, no! No! Thoroughly irritated again at how upheaved his house is these days, Ford turns and hightails it out of there, the choice between brief bumps into strangers or being touched by swine very clear.

Escape from the “Mystery Shack”—goddamn it all, Stanley—is overall fairly painless. He peers around, looking for Soos as he walks down the steps and out onto the dirt surrounding the house. There! Ugly red and gold decorated golf cart, check. Man previously thought to be a gopher, check. His boots crunch the gravel-dirt mixture underfoot, taking their sweet time bringing him over to Soos. He’s in no rush, all he’s interested in is observation. He sits on a tree stump nearby the man’s work, cracking open the journal again and clicking the pen in his hand.

“Sup, Other Mister Pines!”

He nearly jumps out of his skin at Soos’s sudden greeting. He can practically feel his hair standing on end as his eyes dart up, looking at a point over Soos’s ear. “Oh, ah, hello.”

“What’s the word, dude?”

Ford takes a moment to observe Soos changing out the lug nuts on one tire, working his jaw different directions as he thinks of a satisfactory answer. “Scientific observation. What is the ‘word’ with you… ah, Soos?” He looks down, back to The Page of Soos, wishing humans weren’t so hard to observe versus sentient-but-not-sapient woodland magical creatures, who usually don’t have endless social rules to precariously tightrope-walk.

Soos shrugs. “Not much, just fixin’ the golf cart. Y’know, Dipper’s told me lots about what’s in that spooky journal you got there."

No eye contact? Strange, but not unwelcome. It gives Ford more energy to focus on spoken word when he and Soos have no need to look each other in the eye. He finds himself a little wary about what exactly the handyman might have heard from his apparently-existent-great-nephew. “What sort of things?”

An unexpected smile is flashed his way. “Like how you think the mailman is a werewolf! That’s my favorite, for reals. I’ve always thought the same thing, dude! But Mister Pines was tryin’ to cover all the spooky magic up and stuff, so he just told me I was bein’ weird, heh heh!”

He can’t help but let a small laugh slip. “Even knowing my brother, I still have yet to meet a human who is quite as hair-covered as the mailman. I don’t know how we’re the only ones to notice, really.”

“Oh, too true, dude.” Soos stands up, brushing his knees of grit as he continues, “He also never delivers mail on a full moon. I checked the calendar and everything. Never around on a full moon, ever! It’s bonkers.” He shrugs again. “But oh well, he brings packages, which are the best kind of mail, so I guess he’s not so bad.”

“Soos! I need a taste tester for my cookies!” A shrill lispy voice calls, bringing an image forth to Ford’s mind. His great niece.

Tipping his brim just slightly in a salute, Soos parts with a “I am needed elsewhere” and ambles back to the house.

Something tugs up at the corners of his mouth, ever so slightly. Brown eyes fall back to the aged paper, and he writes “mellow” in Soos’s observation description. He makes good company. Good, quiet, unbothered company.


End file.
